Resilient floor tiles that have the appearance of ceramic or natural tile are a popular alternative to the more expensive ceramic and natural floor tiles in the marketplace. A few ways in which the resilient floor tiles can be formed to have the appearance of ceramic or natural tile include forming the resilient floor tiles such that the resilient floor tiles are groutable, providing the resilient floor tiles with a shaped edge about a perimeter thereof, and/or embossing the resilient floor tiles such that the resilient floor tiles have a similar look and/or feel as ceramic or natural tile.
Although there are many known methods for manufacturing resilient floor tiles having the above-described characteristics, there still remains a need to simplify the manufacturing process and reduce the expense associated therewith. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,550,192 teaches a multi-step process for forming resilient floor tiles that includes forming a plurality of resilient floor tile blanks, stacking the resilient floor tile blanks on a pallet, transporting the pallet of resilient floor tile blanks to a destacker, feeding the resilient floor tile blanks one at a time onto a conveyor belt, conveying the resilient tile blanks through a pre-heated oven, and then finally cutting and molding the resilient floor tile blanks to form the resilient floor tiles.
Not only is the above-described process time consuming, which adds to the overall expense and efficiency of manufacturing the resilient floor tiles, but also the process requires unnecessary handling of the resilient floor tiles, which can lead to increases in manufacturing defects. It is therefore desirable to develop a method of manufacturing resilient floor tiles having the appearance of ceramic or natural tile wherein the resilient floor tiles can be manufactured in a continuous process thereby simplifying the manufacturing process, increasing efficiency, and reducing expense.